Namco

Namco Bandai have released Namco Arcade to the iTunes App Store for iOS devices with a free-to-play model in effect. If you're a fan of retro gaming, this is certainly one you won't want to miss as Namco has re-created many 1980's classics and wrapped them all into one app. NAMCO Arcade includes the four titles XEVIOUS, The Tower of Druaga, Motos and Phozon, and more titles are panned for future release.

EA recently lowered the price of roughly 70 of their iPhone and iPad App Store games to $0.99, now Gamevil and Namco have also reduced their prices and as the holiday iTunes Connect deadline fast approaches, more may follow. Mike Schramm from TUAW explains why:

Apple is freezing the charts on December 23rd, which means that any games in the top 200 at that time will remain there over the all-important Christmas holiday, the point at which we've seen the biggest jumps in App Store sales (due to all the new hardware out there under the tree).

So when everyone gets their brand new iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad and heads over to the App Store to get their game on, those top selling, top free, and top grossing leaderboards are going to be marketing gold.

Spring is the time for sales and just like EA Mobile, Namco is holding a sale on select titles through April 5th. You can take advantage of picking up the following 20 games with a discount of up to 40%!

Live from GDC 2010, Rene talks with Jonathan Kromrey, General Manager of Apple Games at Namco about Pool Pro Online 3 [$4.99 - iTunes link] for iPhone and iPod touch... and coming to the iPad as well!

Namco's Apple group, known as Order of Magnitude, started with the iPhone version but since much of the game runs server side, and they've got high resolution art for the PC and Mac versions, moving it over to the iPad is something they can do very quickly. (It will also allow them to bring it to Android -- already in beta -- and other platforms). Due to the server-side nature of the game, you can also play it across platforms with your settings and customizations linked to your username. That means if you play on the iPhone now, when you get the iPad you can log in and just keep playing.

Multiplayer is supported over Wi-Fi and bluetooth and you can chat (i.e. trash-talk) in any language supported by the iPhone via their Unite SDK, the same system that allows cross-platform challenges to be sent and received. (And you can wager with virtual cash to make it a little more interesting).

We've been promised this kind of multi-player, multi-platform gaming for a long time now but Namco looks like they're delivering. The performance and real-time rendering are slick and swift and the controls and customization are precise and robust.

Check out the video below, and if you're playing Pool Pro Online 3 let us know how you're liking it!